The Lodi Public Library Foundation will present its annual "An Evening at the Library — A Celebration of the Art of Storytelling" on Sept. 28 at 201 W. Locust St. in Lodi. Dave Ehlert will po...

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Twain in Lodi

The Lodi Public Library Foundation will present its annual "An Evening at the Library — A Celebration of the Art of Storytelling" on Sept. 28 at 201 W. Locust St. in Lodi. Dave Ehlert will portray Mark Twain at the event, which begins at 5:30 p.m. Tickets are $75. Funds will be used for the ongoing library restoration. For reservations or more information, call (209) 333-5536 or email office@lodilibraryfoundation.org.

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STOCKTON - Dressed in a white three-piece suit and sporting a faux white mustache, a shock of white hair and ruddy cheeks, Gary Putnam was in no hurry Sunday afternoon to go back to being Gary Putnam.

He'd been having too much fun being Mark Twain.

"I've got one of the greatest writers of the 19th century writing for me," Putnam said as he stood outside Central United Methodist Church in central Stockton at midafternoon Sunday. "I like encouraging people to read Mark Twain. He's a gold mine. If I had eight hours, I could go on."

Putnam, a 73-year-old former chaplain at University of the Pacific, had just spent about 50 minutes portraying Twain before an audience of about 100. His efforts had brought the American author and humorist to life, no mean feat considering Twain died more than 100 years ago.

The performance was part of the Stockton-San Joaquin County Public Library's annual "One Book, One San Joaquin" program. "One Book, One San Joaquin," which began in 2002, seeks to confront the county's low literacy rate by encouraging members of the community to read a specific title. This year's selection is "Tolstoy and the Purple Chair," a memoir by Nina Sankovitch, who will speak in Stockton later this month. Sankovitch's book is an homage to the pleasures of reading, said Suzy Daveluy, the library's program director.

"We thought it was really fitting and would really resonate in our community," Daveluy said.

Sunday afternoon, though, was all about Twain.

Putnam has been portraying Twain for 35 years, though at times he switches his white clothes for black and transforms himself from Gary Putnam into Abraham Lincoln.

Of the man who was born Samuel Clemens in 1835, Putnam said, "I've been a reader of Twain all my life."

Putnam regaled his listeners with an array of Twain-isms:

» "A cauliflower is nothing but a cabbage with a college education. But experience is important, too."

» "It's noble to teach oneself, nobler still to teach others, and a whole lot less trouble."

» "You get your facts first, then you can distort them as much as you want."

» "A lie told well is immortal. One striking difference between a cat and a lie is a cat only has nine lives."

» "I've learned that great Christian principle that nothing needs transforming so much as other people's habits."

» "It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."

» "The radical of one century is the conservative of the next."

Daveluy called Putnam's performance "a living history presentation."

She added, "A good book is so many things. It can take us places and it can also provide us a sense of history and a way to learn how people in other parts of the world think and live."